Working on newspaper/website comments from all the new players selected, and a perfect image of that great looking 40th Anniversary logo.

The NHL Draft is concluded, but business is ongoing.

The deadline to make qualifying offers to the teams restricted free agents is Monday at 5pm.

If Garth Snow was asked about who he qualified (as many professional beat-writers have asked respective general managers around the NHL), it did not make the local paper that controls New York Islander coverage as of this time. The beat-writer covering our team, keeps writing Ryan Jankowski, was dismissed two months after the Canadians hired him per their website?

Updated:Josh Bailey, Blake Comeau, Micheal Haley, Jesse Joensuu, Dylan Reese and Ty Wishart were qualified. Jack Hillen was not as of this time, but subject to change before deadline.

Michael Fornabaio tweeted: Dustin Kohn not on that list of qualified as of Sunday. Tomas Marcinko only other unsigned RFA, not likely to get qualified, this is also subject to change before deadline.

Ct Post: Mr Fornabaio has a bit more, but nothing new on qualifying offers to the Bridgeport centric-players.

Bruno Gervais, must now be qualified by Tampa on Monday.

Rob Hisey, Robin Figren are restricted, however both signed in Europe. It is possible Snow could qualify them, as he did with Jeremy Colliton.

Some quality players are already salary-cap casualties, who will not be qualified and on the market as unrestricted free agents on Friday.

NYIFC 6/12/11: Entry went into more depth on qualifying offers process and what is next in that process. ***************************************It was quite an interesting few days on the trade market with so many clubs scrambling to add/subtract cap space, or those which made outright huge trades, especially Minnesota-San Jose. Dale Tallon, who signed Brian Campbell to his contract with Chicago, traded for it once again in Florida.

As I wrote the other day, the CBA needs some changes, but it's working.

Hopefully Nikita Filatov becomes a star in Ottawa, same as I hoped he did with Columbus. Only issue here is the Columbus Dispatch beat-writers constant digs at the New York Islanders, but not the team they cover, for what was a player clearly mismanaged by the Bluejackets.

Fliatov also bears responsibility.

A lot of that going around this league in the media, knock other markets, not the one where paper needs local team advertising money. **************************************All I ever read is the Islanders are scrambling to reach the cap floor. Really?

The Islanders seemed to subtract Wisniewski/Roloson and still were over any cap floor last December? Hamonic's NHL contract was added early last season, Wishart's first-round contract was called up 2/5/11. Koskinen was called up with his contract, same with Poulin?

Don't believe everything you read in newspapers guessing, or fans sites doing cap numbers, that are not official NHL affiliate outlets. I understand in the absence of official league information folks will accept anything, however that does not make it correct.

How do you think Forbes decided to become NHL experts with only estimates?Our professional media also uses these kinds of sites now also, very sloppy. **********************************No issue here with Ryan Smyth doing whatever he is allowed to do within the framework of his contract. The Kings can always refuse his request. This is another advantage of front-loading, because Colorado paid the bulk of his money early, Los Angeles paid less, and now if he goes back to Edmonton they will pay the least.

His average cap-hit only helps Edmonton, it's money they will not pay him.

Updated:Smyth is finally a confirmed trade to Edmonton.

Darcy Regier really needed Ales Kotalik's three million salary that badly? Robyn Regehr is a solid player, but either Regier was watching old game films of Kotalik or he caught Terry Pegula in the honeymoon spending period?

Color me skeptical Ted Nolan, lasts very long now that Rochester is the Buffalo Sabres affiliate. Regier/Ruff go back to Nolan's time or replaced Nolan. Terry Pegula has his work cut out.

The lack of thanks/praise to former owner Tom Golisano, who kept that franchise going is not appropriate. **********************************The Islanders website coverage was frankly not good this weekend, virtually nothing archived (at least yet) from the scouts, or Snow in articles. Seemed to go video centric, and a lot of that was NHL-related.

A lot was done live with a team centric-ITV feed, it has not been made available as of yet.

Having written that those folks have been working very hard, and have had to go above and beyond for a while. Press conferences with Mangano at Coliseum, coverage in Las Vegas, in Minnesota, from the draft party.

Hopefully Wang meant his employees, when he praised the folks working round the clock, the other day. They sure do deserve it. ***********************************I understand the hype will start soon to add UFA.

Look at the current roster and how many players are signed? Not immune to trades, or signings, but as I have written every year, to add, you must subtract.

No folks, this team does not need Brad Richards front-loaded, likely over 50m dollars/hopefully without concussions. Tavares, Bailey, Nielsen, Strome, Nelson, Cizikas, Ullstrom, and all the other centers under contract are good enough unless Snow is looking ahead to UFA for Nielsen, who is not a five on five scorer.

If Snow trades Nielsen, includes in a defender (Eaton/Mottau/Jurcina) in a deal and them wants to make a run at Richards, that risk makes more sense.

You qualify Josh Bailey, put him at center, and leave him there, unless a team is offering a star player at Bailey's age. *************************************No idea what will happen with the goaltending. I do not like the idea of three top quality players, who need to be number one goaltenders sharing the work in Bridgeport, who's head-coaching search just got much tougher with all the AHL hiring by their parent teams.

I more than understand two are coming off surgery, same as at this level. No doubt the Islanders do not know how to proceed either. ************************************** As for NYIFC a free agency section will be setup Tuesday/Wednesday.I like the new sidebar format for information, sorry the old one failed during draft.Considering a twitter box for Islander centric/former players only here.

3 comments:

Really don't appreciate nor understand why u always write negatively about Frans Nielsen. He was one of the best players this past season, was voted as #1 most under-rated player by all NHL players, tied the franchise record for SH goals, the best defensive forward & has the highest hockey IQ on the team. He was +13 (tied 1st) on a team that lost as many games. You never gave him the credit he deserved just because he downy score much 5 on 5, but he is more of a playmaker than a scorer, why don't u see that? Many of Grabner's goals were from Frans set ups. If we lose him, that would be one of the worst moves this team can do

I respect your viewpoint, however we disagree from the points I have made in the blog entries. He's 27 years old and has to do more than produce shorthanded/shootouts. He has zero goals for all the pp minutes he has been given.

Okposo has struggled with him the last two seasons when they were together, he got the puck to Grabner very well, but he needs to score 10-15 five on five goals which costs this team so many one goal games.

Today, I went to the beach front with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said "You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear." She placed the shell to her ear and screamed.There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear.She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is completely off topic but I had to tell someone!

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